Nov 29, 2014 2 min read

The Observer-Reporter recently carried some very nice articles about the meaning of Veterans Day and the important contributions veterans of military service have made to preservation of the freedoms we all enjoy as citizens of this nation. However, I found it ironic that we celebrated Veterans Day during the same week that Massachusetts Institute of Technology health economist Jonathan Gruber was quoted on several different occasions applauding his – and others’ – accomplishments of obscuring facts about the Affordable Care Act from American voters.

Gruber related that the federal law was written in a manner to misinform the Congressional Budget Office assessment of the mandate. He gloated that “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage … Call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”

The bitter irony of these events occurring simultaneously could not have been more vivid. At a time we outwardly celebrate the commitment and sacrifice of selfless Americans in preserving freedom, arrogant, selfish bureaucrats conspire to impose their will on us, corrupting our hard-won freedom by deception and fiat from within.

Many veterans will recall the portion of their oath of enlistment which states in part, “… I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic …”

Gruber and his ilk give context to the term “domestic enemies.”

Stephen T. Johnson

Washington

The writer retired as a major general in the U.S. Marine Corps.